Watch Dogs: Legion Review II

On the other hand, the mechanism mentioned above also makes the money you earn meaningless, as it can only unlock the clothes, which are not important to the game. Similar to Watch Dogs 2, the game’s emphasis on non-lethal weapons is to some extent meaningless, as the lethality of weapons in the game make no difference with bullets, and no one care about how many people you kill. I guess, maybe the producer attempts to encourage players to be nonviolent vigilantes.

The main difference between Watch Dogs: Legion and traditional open world games is that characters in the game can be sacrificed or replaced, even though their death will have some impact. By default, if the characters you are controlling are shot, beaten or bombed, they will be sent to hospital or prison, and you cannot use them for a while. But if you are in the permadeath mode, the risks of the missions steeply rise, which is much more thrilling than any other open world games I have played.

In the permadeath mode, the death of characters means permanent leaves. Most characters may be easily replaced by other candidates, while some of them with special abilities cannot be found any more. Sometimes, my characters are lucky enough to dodge a bullet, while sometimes they die because of some unexpected accidence. For example, there was once I was driving and didn’t notice a powder cask, which exploded and blew my character to the sky. (I thought it was bug, before I check my video history.)

Generally speaking, it’s not difficult to survive if you behave cautiously. Your HP will recover quickly if you pull back in a fight. There is an upgrade option that you can knock down an enemy in 30 seconds, which is useful in stealth (not many people around you). There are almost no falling damages in the game, as the gaming experience will be too bad if you lose a team member by misjudging the distance.

You don’t have to worry about losing members or about their kidnap (common in the game). If you lose all you members, the game will be over. But recruiting more members is not difficult, and your AI partner will guide you to find new elite members. I gained some of my potential members’ trust with the help of marks in the game. For example, if you find someone with a red mark in his/her head in the map, it means that the person is the enemy of one of your candidates. Kill the person, and you probably will have a new member.